The Flower in the Wasteland
by ElectraGoob
Summary: he met her by chance, loved her like his own never would, and was ready to give his life for her at the hands of the ones she loved more than anything. But the eyes of blind hate may keep the two apart indefinitely. Written in the way Pochahontas should have been written Rated T for battles and safety
1. Prologue

Many years ago, long before the great ruins of our village were made, a large group of men and women came from across the sea to our land. They built little settlements here and there and began planting crops. Their land thrived almost immediately. They all were happy and prosperous. The people set up their own government and money system. This land was nearly utopia. The people had nothing to fear. There were no invaders, yet; there were no wars, yet; there was no famine, yet; there was no tyranny, yet. After nearly two hundred years of living in peace, the nations across the seas wanted their wealth. This country they envied had beautiful landscape and crops to make any nation thrive. Their trade was profitable; their income was larger than their costs year after year. The cities were large and the towers high. The other nations took advantage of their sense of security.

Without warning the nation was attacked and ran-sacked. The land was left with nothing. The people were massacred and their leaders executed. The people fled with nowhere to go. The nation was brought down in one swift blow. The cities were brought down to the ground leaving nothing but waste and ash. The lands that once boasted in rivers and crops were burned into nothingness. Every creature was killed; those who survived starved. The other nations, after their fit of jealousy was over, stood back to examine their work. The economic giant was brought down never to rise again. The peaceful country was left on the brink of death.

And yet…

No one was happy.

Even after all the death and destruction the nations across the seas brought in hopes of making themselves important again, no one was happy. The countries across the seas gained nothing from the destruction of this unnamed country. But they also lost a great deal of income from it.

The cost of this war, if you could call it a war, was great upon the leading countries from across the seas. Making weapons and paying soldiers put many of the smaller countries into great debt. As the rulers across the seas tried to heal their financial wound and regain what dignity they had left, the little country on the other side of the sea tried to heal its wounds of war.

No one was happy.

The country was nothing but a wasteland.

The people were sad.

The people were dead or dying.

The people were starving.

But…

These people who survived the war, or rather the attack, pushed on.

They were going to survive.

They had to survive.

What other choice did they have?

They did not want to die.

"And how would the history books be read in those lands across the seas when they see how far we've come from those days? They will read, 'And even though they never stood a chance against the destruction, they not only survived, they thrived."

Little Mira shifted her position slightly as I finished my story. It was her nap time and she asked me to tell her the story of the wasteland. I couldn't help but oblige. She was my niece; after all, no aunt can refuse her niece a request.

Her mother, and my sister in law, Kaho came in to check on us just as I was struggling to stand up. She laughed as I awkwardly stumbled over some of the other sleeping children in the room.

"You put all of them to sleep," she giggled.

"Yes, well history class puts me to sleep too sometimes," I whispered as she shut the door behind me.

"Oh but you do such a good job with the kids when telling them about their past," she said as she walked down the dark hallway with me at her side.

Kaho was the village teacher; I was her apprentice of sorts. She married my brother when he graduated from her class about six years ago. Their little girl is about five years old now. I love the name they chose for her as well, Mira. It means future. Which is what we strive for every day here in our village.

Fifty years after the attack on our country and our people are still surviving. But up until only eight years ago the entire country was about to die out completely.

I was only twelve at the time. And my brother was eighteen going on nineteen. I was never exactly the best lady in the village. My mother and father were the leaders. I guess they still are, actually. My days were all pretty simple, start out the day with breakfast with my family, lessons on leading the country with my mother, lessons with Miss Kaho. Then after that I had the rest of the day to spend however I want. I usually spent it with my best friend and cousin Tomoyo. She and I were not exactly ladies. We would run around the village killing the monsters and getting into trouble.

It was during one of those little adventures where I met her.

Though the word "met" usually means two people being introduced to one another in a public or private setting for the first time; the word that best describes that moment is the word "found." I found her that day. I was running around the ruins of the city, something my parents said they rather have me NOT do, and my brother was also set on having me stay in the village. But Tomoyo and I decided that a little exploring would be more fun. I was on top of the large conference center of the city. Not a single building was left the way it once was. And this building was no different. We were always told that the structures were unstable, and being on top of them was very dangerous. They could fall on us at any time. But I was not one to let a little warning get in the way of our rendition of Romeo and Juliet. I was Juliet and I was to stand on the balcony and await the coming of Romeo, in the form of Tomoyo. But just as Tomoyo was saying how marvelous it would be to be the glove on my hand I felt the ground below me begin to give.

I let out a shriek as I suddenly saw darkness come up and swallow me whole.

Mother always said kids bounce.

And bounce, I did.

I bounced off the beams of the building and tumbled off one floor after another. I bounced off this pile of rubble in hopes of solidly landing on that pile only to bounce off it again. No it wasn't spring-filled, I just was falling so quickly I seemed to slide off of it. Finally the falling stopped. The darkness around me was overwhelming. I could barely hear Tomoyo's frantic screams from above my head. I must have fallen four or five floors down. Tomoyo and I were already fairly high up on the building, about two stories above the "ground" of ash and rubble. I could hear her scream my name, was that my name I heard?

"Sakura-chan! Sakura-chan are you okay?! Answer me Sakura-chan!"

Is that my name? I must have hit my head pretty hard on my way down here.

The light above my head was dark. But the room was oddly lit. I looked around for a moment, trying to get a grasp of the situation. The room was destroyed, the walls were torn down and there were only a few beams that held up the roof above my head. I dared not go further inside. But as I walked in I could see the light was coming from further in the wreckage. I saw where the walls used to be of a large room. It must have been the auditorium of the center. There was a large scoreboard on the ground and the lines from the court were still visible. I have never played an official game of basketball, but my brother and his friends let me play with them on the old streets were they found a goal. They made a second one on the other side of the open space. An old man told us about how he and his friends used to play in the large conference center where I now stood. It was a surreal moment. But there was still the mystery of the light beyond the scoreboard. I walked further into the rubble. The bleachers were in a mangled mess over by the wall, the center of the building came straight down into the court. But the light was not over there, it was back over by a wall that had not fallen. It was hidden behind a large object that looked like a stand with a seat in it. The old man described how one person would sit on a large crow's nest and give the "play-by-play" to the fans.

And that was when I found her. She _was_ the light I saw. She stood, motionless, like a statue. Her eyes were closed. Her skin seemed to be solid and paled. She was almost like a statue. The only thing that made me sure she was not a statue was her hair. It was soft to the touch and very long, nearly touching the ground. I reached out my hand to touch her when I heard voices. It was more of one single voice calling to me.

At first I thought it was Tomoyo, trying to get me to respond, but I realized that I was alone and out of earshot of anyone. I focused more on the person in front of me. I listened to the voice.

"Come on," a little voice said, "just one night here with me. It will be fun, Syaoran!"

I froze and listened more to the voice, another voice rang out in the silence, "But Princess, I do not belong in the palace, and father would—"

"Your father would understand! You've been gone for weeks, I've missed you Syaoran!"

There was a still silence for a moment in the darkness, "Alright, Princess, for you."

"Yay! I get to spend the night with Syaoran!"

"As long," the voice interrupted almost hesitantly, "as you stay at my home."

There was another silence, "I would like that very much."

The next thing I knew I had my hand on the person, my fingers twitched at the base of her neck. The room was dark again. I fell to my knees and screamed as I held my hands to my head. I got dizzy as I fell to the ground.

I woke up with a start in my bed. Apparently I had passed out after touching the girl. I was down there for three hours as the men from my village tried to find me. They had gone around to the main doors of the building, which had remained above ground. They had found the doors to the gym and when they opened them they found me and the girl. They brought both of us back to the village. My mother, the village seer, told the men to place the girl in a room separate from the rest of the people. Since they found me next to the girl passed out, they feared she was cursed.

At that time the only people who know of the girl are the men who rescued me, my father and brother, and my mother. My mother wanted to examine the girl further. I never told anyone about the voices. I never thought it was that important.

As time went on I learned more about leading the people, I also got stronger. And I also became a seer like my mother. My father went on leading the people. And my mother continued to try to figure out who and what the girl was. What no one knew was that I went to go see her as well. Late at night I would have a dream, it was always the same dream, in the dream two children would be playing in the sand. That was a sight I was used to. The two would be playing and talking to one another. They grow up sitting next to each other. And just as they are about to stand up from the sand, the girl falls and the boy catches her. Two figures, both of which have different clothes from the other two, appear next to the boy and they all disappear into nothingness. The last thing I see is the girl's tear fall from her face when she disappears. Then I open my eyes and see my hand at the base of the mysterious girl's neck, just over the heart.

As time flowed on, the land became more and more rich. The crops we were fighting to grow seemed to grow naturally. Suddenly, the families in our little village had such a plethora that we began to throw out the extra food. The extra food was able to be used as fertilizer. The people had crops growing naturally in what little ground they had. Soon, the people were able to go out for long periods of time with food to sustain them. They returned with good news of the shores. The people were beginning to dig canals to the village and we were able to get fresh water from above the ground.

And this all happened after the girl was brought back.

The people were alive, they were thriving.

We were all so happy.

And yet, I never knew.

I never knew.

She was becoming more and more ill, but she never showed it.

It was like a dream, those weeks.

It started when mother collapsed in the chamber with that girl. Then she became so weak she could not get out of bed. It was as if that girl was poisoning her. I knew in my heart that I hated that girl for what she was doing to my mother, yet I was so attracted to her that I could not help but go to see her and stare at her. Then I would go to my mother and watch as she slowly died in front of us.

We were so happy. But it seems the land has this idea that once the people here are happy, it is time to send calamity. Being a near-primal village with little medicine for even the simplest of sicknesses, there was little help to be given to my mother.

It was like I was standing on the conference center again. On top of the world, only to be engulfed by darkness and thrown down below the earth itself and hit every freaking ledge on the way down.

But, who was I to tell the world to let up on me?

I was not the only one suffering from the pain of my mother's death. The entire village wept at her funeral. They asked what happened to her, why did she become ill so suddenly. Somehow, word of that girl spread to the villagers. My father knew next to nothing about her, he only had my mother's notes on what she could figure out. The people wanted to know if she was a threat or not.

I, being the only other seer in the village, apart from Toya's childhood friend, Yukito, was chosen to take up her research. And that is exactly what I did. I studied her notes for days as I tried to make sense of what I knew and never told my family, and what she wrote down.

_Day 67,_

_I have come to the realization that this being is indeed alive. Her hair has grown from its original length from 67 days ago and is now 1/20__th__ of an inch longer. Her body has slowed its growing state indefinitely. Judging from the size of her clothing and her actual body size, her growth rate has not stopped altogether. She looks as if she could be in her mid-20 but her clothes have been made for a young girl in her younger teen years. But these clothes are immovable. She must be in some sort of coma-like state. There is a chance that she is a young girl from the time of the attack all those years ago. If that is the case, she has a slowed growth rate of 1\4 as that of a normal human. And yet, there is no heartbeat to be found._

The day came where I had my own notebook and I was ready to enter the chamber and begin taking notes myself. I hesitated for the sake of my father and brother. They feared I would end up like my mother. But I had been visiting her almost as often as my mother and showed no signs of becoming ill. I wore the same ceremonial clothes as my mother on that day. As I entered the chamber I was almost immediately drawn to her. The voices echoed in the room as I walked up to her. And then I saw the sunset from my little window in my room.

That is how it always was. I would walk in, hear the same voices, and then realize I was in my room watching the sunset. Apparently I would spend hours in the room, walk out and tell the first person I saw that I found nothing, and then I would wander to my room and stare out the window in silence. Nothing more.

Years passed. My brother got married and had a daughter. He named her Mira, future. I went into the chamber less and less until it was nearly deserted completely. I ever only found out one thing for sure, she was the reason the land was so plentiful. It all started because she was brought there.

But she was also the reason the world was so dark. Don't worry, I am not sad anymore. Accepting my mother's death took a long time, but I was able to do it, with everyone's help, of course.

Tomoyo and I still went out and got into trouble. I became strong, both as a seer and as a warrior. But one thing always constant for my people here:

We were in a wasteland.

We were hidden from the world.

We were safe.

That is, until the people from the West became curious.

And that, my friends, is where the story really begins.


	2. the Angry Shepherd

The ship rocked a little as it came to a stop a little less than a mile off shore. This was the best way the government wanted the men to travel to the wasteland. This way the planes would not run out of fuel trying to find a safe landing strip of some sort.

But the people of the nation to the West had no real reason to go to this wasteland, but there were rumors among the people that the citizens of that country may still be alive. And there must also be some leftover resource that might be able to help the land fully recover from the blow of their side of the war. The king sent out a group of men to go find out if there was any resource they could salvage after all these years.

Two lords, Lord Kyle and Lord Seishiro, rounded up a group of about fifty men of strong bodies to trek across the sea. Along with them they took a skilled and very powerful and wise magician by the name of Fai D. Flowright.

The little boats that sat on the sides of the ship splashed into the waters below as the men prepared to row ashore. Many of the men commented on how it felt as if they were the men who came to the land all those years ago to settle it for the first time.

"Well we all know that it is not even close to the same as back then, apart from the boats," Fai said as the wind from the land blew dust clouds toward the sea.

The other men nodded as they continued to load the cargo.

Once they were on land, the men began to look around the small space around them.

One man lifted the dirt off the ground to examine it, "Ash," he said as the ash-like dirt slipped through his fingers.

"This land has been laid to absolute waste," another man said as he examined an old warehouse building's foundation.

"It was the worst on the ports, where the people could escape. The harbors and airports were hit first and fast," Lord Kyle said as he sifted through a pile of rubble. The rubble, which was apparently an old shed of some sort, collapsed, bringing forth a dust cloud of dirt and ash into the air. The men nearby coughed as the magician used his magic to send the dust cloud away from them.

"There is nothing here but rubble and unstable structures. Nothing along the sea is inhabitable," Fai said as he gathered a few boxes together in one place.

"Maybe that is just what the creatures here want you to think," Lord Seishiro said with hate behind his teeth.

"I mean no disrespect, my Lord," Fai said as he collected more boxes into one place, "But I sense no living being here apart from the fifty men you brought here, myself and the two Lords. Therefore, I suggest we move inland more. No life means no meat. No meat means we have nothing bot bread and vegetables to eat. That means our rations will run out quickly. We might as well move on while there is daylight," he said as he placed the last box down in triumph.

"We have all these supplies," a man said motioning to the cargo Fai had just gathered, "How in the world are we supposed to carry all this and find a good campsite for over fifty men?"

Fai smiled to the men and pointed to himself with a wink, "That's what I am here for, my good sir."

And with a wave of his hand, the cargo disappeared. Many of the men shouted that he had destroyed it all; others simply gawked at the spectacle.

Fai walked up to the empty space and picked up a little bag the size of his palm. He turned to the shocked men with a grin, "Who is in charge of the cargo?"

A man with a dumbfounded look on his face slowly raised his hand. Fai walked up to him and held up the little bag. "What's this," he asked after staring at it for a moment.

"It is all our supplies in a snazzy carrying bag. Considering the lack of color in this place I decided to make it a lovely orange, that way we can find it easily if it gets misplaced."

The man grabbed the bag hastily, "Are you saying I'll misplace it?"

Fai just smirked and turned to the two lords, "Shall we go?"

Sakura and Tomoyo held their spears at their sides and their bows over their shoulders as they walked through the wasteland that they called "home." They were in search of a couple sheep that separated themselves from the herd. Sheep were really stupid creatures. Tomoyo was not one to suggest splitting up, but she had a feeling Sakura was in need have some alone time with her thoughts. She had mentioned a strange dream that morning when they went to count the sheep. But there was a feeling in the pit of her stomach that did not want her to leave her friend.

"Sakura-chan," Tomoyo asked as they rounded a bend that was once a four-way-stop.

"Hmm?" Sakura responded as she looked under some rubble.

"What was your dream about?" Tomoyo asked bluntly.

Sakura looked up at her dear cousin with questioning green eyes. Tomoyo was one who did not ask much when it came to her dreams. Sakura assumed it was because she was honestly confused about the dream herself. Being a seer, Sakura should know the meaning of dreams, but the meaning of this particular dream seemed to elude her. Sakura straightened her back and looked to her friend eye-to-eye.

"Well," she began slowly, "there is this creature. I do not know what it is, or where it even came from, I just know it is a very beautiful creature. It is running across the wasteland. I am standing a great distance from it, maybe about 50 meters from it. Once it is right in front of me, it stops. It turns its great head toward me and changes direction. It is no longer running. As it approaches me I can hear it breathing heavily, as if it has been running for a long time. The closer it gets, the clearer the creature becomes. It is a tall creature with fluffy yellow fur. Its paws are soft and padded; its footsteps are as soft as a hunter's. Its eyes are the brightest blue, but they are sad, nearly crying. As it comes closer I hear a gentle cry from the very bottom of its throat. Without even realizing it, I raise my hand up to its snout. The creature sniffs my hand and moves closer. I want to kill it with all might strength, but there is something about those eyes that makes me want to just hug it. I take it to my father, the people want to kill it, they shout at me to do so. My father raises a hand to silence the crowd. I turn to the creature and just for a moment, he looks almost as if he would be happy to die. Then, just as I raise my hand to strike the beast down, I woke up."

"How strange," Tomoyo said as she climbed over a boulder that was once part of the local library.

"I feel so lost," Sakura said freezing in her steps.

Tomoyo was not sure if she meant she was lost in the wasteland or lost about not knowing what her dream meant. "I'm sure you'll find your way soon."

Sakura looked up at her friend who was walking on as if the world had not just ended right there. Sakura called out to her friends to wait.

"We'll find them faster if we split up; meet back at the flock by tonight, okay?"

Sakura once again stopped in her tracks. She gripped her spear tighter and took a deep breath. The smell of the wasteland entered in her body. It was a sickly smell, but one gets used to it. Eventually.

Sakura turned on her heel and walked toward a familiar place. If a sheep were to get lost, they would go to food. There was no food there, but there was something precious there that Sakura wanted to visit again.

The sound of voices was never something you expected to hear out in the wastelands. Especially voices you did not know. Sakura immediately climbed the nearest pile of rubble in an attempt to get a better view. Using her spear as leverage, Sakura pulled herself to the top of a large office building that was now just a really large mountain-like pile. It was sturdy enough to climb and stand on, but, like everything else in the world, it was not stable enough to live on. Sakura got to the top of the building only to catch a small glimpse of four men chatting as they walked down the old main street of the city. They commented on how devastating the war was on the people of the country and how it was impossible that anything could have survived this long in this place. Sakura found herself scoffing at the men. She lowered herself silently down the ledge and continued to follow the group. She had to be extra careful not to make anything fall or land on metal loudly as she followed the men.

She found herself in a part of the city she had never dared go to. The men seemed to have made a camp there in the ruins of the city. There was a fire in the center of the camp that made their shadows dance on the walls of a small home. The dirt on the land behind them was stirred and the wind was blowing it everywhere. Usually when that happened to a hunter or herder they would simply have to hide or hope a seer was with them at the time. Sakura found herself being called out many times to walk with the men of the village in order to stop dust storms caused by running prey or spooked sheep. But the men seemed to have a seer of their own with them. He was conjuring the wind to blow away from them, only making the dust cloud worse beyond the little neighborhood. Sakura had heard rumors about their being another village beyond the expanse of the city, but she believed there to be little hope for their survival after all this time.

It was at that moment when she recalled the same words being spoken by the strange man. She scoffed again, this time at herself. There was always hope for survival. She was living proof of just that.

"Put on the kettle and break open the vegetables men, we're eating well tonight!" a voice called from nearly behind her. Sakura froze in place and her eyes grew wide. The voice continued to shout for joy as he and another man danced by her. Over their shoulders were two sheep, her sheep. Sakura gripped her spear ready to throw at the men at the thought of them mindlessly killing the sheep.

"They are real, and alive!" another man said as the sheep were placed down on the ground. They were cornered by the men as they began to the fixings together.

"Wait for a moment," a voice called. The voice was cool, yet fierce, "don't you think we should first check something?" The men all watched as the man lifted one sheep after the other. "One of these is a boy," he said standing.

Sakura laid the spear across her lap and pulled out her bow. She would rather kill the men than sacrifice one of the only male sheep in her herd. She aimed her bow at the man's head, ready to fire when another voice called out.

"We should not kill these sheep. They may lead us to their owners," the voice of the seer rang out. He walked up toward the other men and picked up the sheep. He walked to the end of the camp with both sheep under his arms. He released them and the sheep began to run back toward the ruins. The men began to chase after the sheep, making the sheep run faster.

"Stop," the seer said calmly with a raise of his hand, "Leave the sheep alone. Wherever they came from, they have survived. They will be fine and there will be more. Let us not be too hasty." The seer turned away from the group and sat by the fire with a smug look on his face.

Sakura wasted no time in sheathing her arrow and shouldering her bow and chasing after the sheep. With one under each arm she walked cautiously back to the village to tell the news to everyone about the men from another country in their lands.

Fai sat with a smug look on his face as the men complained to the lords about the sheep. The lords simply said that the magician knew what he was doing. Fai kept the fact that he had just saved the lord's life from an angry shepherd to himself.


	3. Friend or Foe?

As Sakura reached the edge of the village with her sheep Tomoyo called out.

"You found them!" she laughed as she took the sheep from under her arms, "I knew I could count on you, Sakura-chan."

Sakura walked right by her friend and immediately found her brother. He was with Kaho and his daughter by the main living quarters. When he saw the distress on her face, Toya went straight to her. Sakura was out of breath from shock from what she had seen. She looked up to her brother with her emerald eyes.

"Sakura, what happened?" Toya asked grabbing her sister's shoulders.

"Men," she gasped.

"What about them," Toya asked with a raised amount of concern.

"Men here! From the West!" she hissed loud enough for him to hear.

Toya grabbed his sister and daughter and brought them into the building, Kaho followed closely behind.

"What is going on, Toya?" Kaho asked as they made their way to the place where Fujioka was.

"Take Mira and get into our living quarters, don't come out until I say so." Toya still had a grip on Sakura and pulled her into the room. Fujioka raised his head from his work and smiled to his children. His smile faded when he saw the distress in their eyes.

"What happened? What's wrong?" he asked rising from his chair.

"Sakura saw men from the West on our lands," Toya said with his hand still around Sakura's shoulder.

"Is this true?" Fujioka asked his daughter as he walked up to them.

"Yes," she said looking down. Her expression had changed completely. She was no longer distressed. She was becoming angry. Her mind was racing. How did they get here, what was their plan? What did these men want?

"Sakura, were they evil men? Did they mean any harm?" Fujioka asked his daughter trying to get her attention again.

"I—I don't know," Sakura's mind replayed the events of how she met them and what she had heard. "They were talking about the war and the devastation it caused. And then when they got to their camp, they found two of our sheep. They planned to eat them but one, a seer like me, he told them that the sheep will lead them to us! Father!" Sakura's eyes grew wide, "They are after us! They want to take us out completely!"

Fujioka placed a calming hand on his daughter's shoulder, "I will not let them get that far, my dear."

Sakura blinked back her tears of fear, she may have been a strong warrior, but she was also fragile. She knew that if this threat was to be taken care of, all her feelings of fear would have to be ignored and suppressed. For now.

"Toya, we must warn the people that they are not to leave the village. If we are found, they may not hesitate to kill us. No one leaves this village until we know what they want. I want only the best and the most skilled hunters going out into the wasteland. Hopefully we will be able to find what they want. Let us only hope and pray that they mean no harm."

Toya nodded to his father and turned to leave, he stopped to look at his sister one last time before leaving the room. He knew that she would not stay in one place for every long. She was determined to find out what was going on even if it killed her.

And that is what he feared the most.

* * *

As the weeks went on, there was no major interaction between the two groups of people. The men from the west did not find the villagers, and the hunters were unable to find out anything from the men. There was an eerie stillness in the air. The animals remained hidden and the people remained underground. Sakura was growing restless.

The villagers all agreed that it would be a matter of time before the men found the irrigation lines they had from the sea to their village. This fact made Sakura even more restless. She decided that she was going to act upon it.

Fai was getting bored. He was stuck watching the men go in circles trying to find the place the animals came from. He was torn between doing his job and keeping the quiet people at peace. He would wake up, stare at the dusty sky until food was served, then he would have to listen to the men complain about how they could have two perfectly good sheep getting ready to produce more livestock for food. Then the groups would go out and try to find food or people. At sundown the men would come back with nothing, complain about the food, and go to sleep. Fai watched, he always watched. He told the men that there was a life force in the general area. That is why the men never left their campsite.

Fai was starting to lose interest in the same broken scenery. Perhaps a hunt to find a water source would be entertaining. He didn't want to bring any other people with him if he did happen to find it, but he still wanted out of the camp. One day he decided to act upon it.

Fai wandered down toward the coast. He could see the remains of many ports from his place on a ledge of a warehouse. He decided to enjoy the view for a moment. His concentration was shaken when he heard the sound of running water behind him. He turned to find nothing behind him at all. He got up from his place and began walking down toward the coast. His feet sank into the mud as he made his way across the coast. He knew he was being watched.

Sakura kept her eyes on the seer as he walked down the beach. She was growing uneasy as he neared the water source. She followed as closely as she could without making her presence known too much to the man. She knew he knew she was watching him. Her arrow sat on the string of her bow as she leapt from one ledge to another. When he reached the water source she pulled the string back.

Fai ran his hand along the side of a large wall. It was not obvious that it had been moved. But there were tool marks on the base of the wall deep in the mud. Fai found a foothold and climbed to the top of the structure. He knew he was now a sitting duck on top of a giant trap. He ran to the edge of the wall and jumped down into the ocean. He felt the current pull him under the surface and down into the large hole dug beneath the structure. Using his magic he pulled himself up to the top of the water. He made his way to the edge of the wall and began to pull himself up and into the mud. The water and mud mixture splashed into his eyes suddenly and he felt something pull him up and out of the mud.

Fai wiped the mud clear from his eyes and looked up. He saw the same dusty sky above his head. He turned to see the ruins of the docks watching him. He looked up to the wall in hopes of finding his rescuer. Nothing was there. Fai got up onto his feet and walked to the dry land. He had found the water for the village. He had been saved by the very person who was ready to kill him. He glanced once more at the wall only to hear a thud on the ground in front of him. He looked down at his feet to find an arrow right between his feet.

Whoever this rescuer was, they were willing to let him live by choice, not chance. Fai smiled and picked up the arrow. He walked toward the source of the life force he sensed, but not close enough to cause alarm.

"Thank you for saving me," he said placing the arrow on a ledge, "but if I am caught with this, you will be found out." He took one last glance in the person's direction before turning to leave. "I owe you one, strange hero."

Sakura wiped the mud off her boots before reaching out to grab her arrow. After sheathing it again she glanced out to the seer. There was something so familiar about him. Sakura found herself reaching out to him without even thinking.

"Maybe, they are here to help us." Sakura whispered as she climbed back up the ruins to her village. As she neared her village she overheard two men talking. She did not recognize the voices. She climbed up to view the men.

"Do you think the people will put up a fight?"

"They might not even exist."

"But if they do, will they fight us?"

"Of course they will. That's why we came prepared."

One of the men grabbed the rifle at his side and chuckled.

"We just want to know why and how they survived, _if_ they survived at all."

"And if they did?"

"We will take whatever it is that made them survive and maybe even make our nation stronger!"

"I thought we were here to help them?"

The first man hit the other on the side of the head, "You idiot. That is what we will tell them to get them to let us in. Then when we have their power in our grip," he hit his fist with his other hand, "they're gone."

"Why?"

"Because that is what the Lords want! Idiot!"

Sakura wasted no time. She ran as fast as she could back to the village to give them the news.


End file.
